For the past couple of days, someone on-chain has been watching large transfers and the hot/cold wallet movements of exchanges, calling it “smart money,” but what I care about more is: what exactly your small order goes through during congestion. To put it plainly, it gets put into the mempool queue, and miners/block inclusion are prioritized based on how much “tip” you’re willing to pay. If you pay too little, it keeps hanging there; if you pay more, it might get picked up in the next block. During the wait, others can even cut in line, and if you end up regretting it and want to cancel, you’ll have to pay another fee too… Sometimes when I see the execution price looks off, it’s not because you clicked by mistake—it’s because the queue carried it far enough that the market changed.

These days, I’ve adjusted my target downward instead: I don’t chase “must execute immediately.” If I can wait, I wait; I don’t push the fee rate to the maximum, and I simplify the strategy a bit too. As a result, this smaller target is easier to stick to, and my mindset isn’t as easily dragged around by the mempool. After all, when the network is congested, what’s usually urgent isn’t the chain—it’s the people.